Chunlei Guo and the femtosecond laser usds to create nanostructures in metal that can move liquid uphill
Photo credit: Richard Baker, University of Rochester

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Article Summary

Gravity can make it difficult to move liquid uphill but scientists at the University of Rochester have created a simple slab of metal that does exactly that using the same wicking process that trees employ to pull vast amounts of water from their roots up to their leaves. The metal could be used to pump microscopic amounts of liquid around a medical diagnostic chip, cool a computer's processor or turn almost any simple metal into an anti-bacterial surface.